DAYTON — The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine a $499,095 grant to accelerate the transformation of the school’s primary care curriculum, along with an $80,000 supplemental grant for medically assisted treatment of opioid addiction.

The $499,095 grant will be used to accelerate the transformation of the primary care curriculum across faculty and graduate and undergraduate programs in family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics in addition to nurse practitioner and physician assistant programs.

This is the second year of a five-year renewable grant for primary care training and enhancement. In 2016, Wright State received $451,764 from HRSA as part of a nationwide effort to prepare the next generation of skilled, diverse primary care providers to serve communities in need.

S. Bruce Binder, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor and interim chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the Boonshoft School of Medicine, is the principal investigator of the grant, “Accelerating Primary Care Transformation Wright (ACT-Wright).” Binder said the grant further meets the medical school’s goal of enriching the primary care transformation curriculum.

“We want our medical students and residents in family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics as well as nurse practitioners and physician assistants to better understand the social determinants of health, population health management, quality improvement, interprofessional team competencies, stewardship of resources and patient self-management,” he said. “By better understanding these issues and learning to work together across disciplines, we will graduate clinicians who are prepared to serve communities in need nationwide.”

Binder’s team includes faculty members from the Boonshoft School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine and Department of Pediatrics in addition to the WSU-Miami Valley College of Nursing and Health, WSU School of Professional Psychology and Kettering College Physician Assistant Program.

The grant also will enable Wright State to develop a one-year primary care transformation fellowship for graduating family medicine, internal medicine and pediatric residents.

“We are creating a pipeline for academic faculty and primary care transformational leaders in the Dayton region,” Binder said. “As health care evolves, a new approach to patient-centered care is emerging, one in which a physician works with a team of health care professionals, including behavioral health care providers, community health workers, pharmacists and other health care professionals to provide the patient with the best physical and mental health care.”

Funds from the grant also will be used to enrich the faculty development of community preceptors, primary care physicians who play an important role in the training and mentoring of medical students and residents at family medicine, pediatric and nurse practitioner clerkship sites throughout the Dayton region. “We want to provide our clinical preceptors with faculty development that will benefit them, medical students, residents and patients,” Binder said.

In addition to the $499,095 grant, HRSA awarded Wright State a one-year supplemental grant in the amount of $80,000 for medically assisted treatment of opioid addiction. The supplemental grant will train physicians in the community, medical residents, nurse practitioners and physician assistants in opioid addiction treatment.

“In Ohio, unintentional drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death. In Montgomery and Greene counties, unintentional drug overdose rates increased by more than 100 percent since 2010,” said Binder, who also is the principal investigator of the supplemental grant. “By expanding the number of trained physicians, nurses and physician assistants to provide medical assisted treatment, we can more effectively address the opioid epidemic in Montgomery and Greene counties in addition to the rural counties affiliated with the Wright State University-Lake Campus in Celina.”

The grant, “Medically Assisted Treatment for Opioid Addiction, a Supplement to Accelerating Primary Care Transformation Wright (ACT-Wright),” will enable Binder and an interdisciplinary team to develop elective coursework in opioid use disorder and medically assisted treatment.

The interdisciplinary team includes faculty members from the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine and the Center for Interventions, Treatment, and Addictions Research (CITAR) in addition to the WSU-Miami Valley College of Nursing and Health, WSU School of Professional Psychology and the Kettering College Physician Assistant Program.